Can mushrooms fight obesity in the gut?
mushroom that has been used for centuries in Chinese herbal medicine has been found to stave off obesity by altering the composition of bacteria in the gut, according to a study found in Nature Communications. The researchers from Chang Gung University measured the impact of giving extracts from the mushroom – called ‘Lingzhi’ – to mice on a high fat diet. True enough, they found that mice that were given the extract over two months gained less weight than their ‘placebo’ counterparts. The authors of the study are hopeful that Lingzhi can be used in the general population due to the good safety records and its similar composition to other mushrooms that we consume regularly.
The researchers confirmed that it was in fact the change in bacteria in the guts of the mice that affected the weight gain by transplanting the faeces of the mushroom-fed mice into the placebo mice and seeing a reduction in weight. They suggested that the mushroom acts as a ‘pre-biotic’, essentially acting as a fertiliser to promote beneficial bacterial growth in the gut. However, experts are warning that mice guts and human guts are vastly different, and that there is not going to be a simple ‘magic pill’ for obesity as it is much more complex than this.
